What is genre?

 GENRE:

Genre is a way in which we categorize media products. By putting media texts and products into a grouping, we as an audience are able to develop specific knowledge and a certain amounts of expectation to what it is going to be. This is done by analysis and interpretation as well as the following of conventions and ideologies. In modern day, movies are a clear example of this, as active audiences have developed specific stereotypical narratives that tend to be associated with the genre. so now by putting media products and texts into these genres, we can identify parts of it immediately without being confused to what we are absorbing.

genre is extremely important as it not only helps and influences the audience, but it helps institutions market their film. Marketing is just as important as the movie itself, as it communicates to audiences and the targeted public what they are going to be exposed to. This is where the 3 types of genre come in to it, genre, sub genre and hybrid genre's. these identify and categorize the genre, making it even more  detailed. while sub genre includes separate categories within it, hybridity is the combination of genres which become more intriguing to a mass audience.

sub genres are for when just categorizing a film is too vague, a clear example of this would be horror, like slasher horror. this makes it ore descriptive to what the narrative will possibly be like. while hybrid genres are a combination of genres like Romcom; this means it is new and the endings are unexpected, and generally opens it up to a wider audience. 

we associate a mass amount of information with genre, genre gives away the narrative, the expectations. most information, we can develop opinions just based off of the genre.its a key point of a media product

Conglomerate research

WALT DISNEY: 

In 1923 in a rear of a small office occupied by Holly-Vermont realty in Los Angeles. It was there that Walt Disney and his brother Roy, produced a series of short live-action/animated films collectively called the Alice Comedies. Now as a company that made 16 billion in 2020 having made at least 150 movies, is now headquartered in California, United States. Though that is their home base of where it all started they have over 19,000 employees working in 45 different countries. 

There is not 1 specific person that owns the company as it is a publicly traded company, but the largest shareholder with the company is Vanguard Group inc, who owns 137.8 million shares. The Vanguard Group Inc is an American registered investment advisor based in Pennsylvania with about $7 trillion in global assets under management. While the chairmen of Disney Robert A Iger, who previously worked as president of ABC television. this therefore meant he has connections with the tv industry and connections across the world. now in present day the owner of Disney is Bob Iger, who has built up a net worth of 690 million dollars. This makes him significantly richer than the previous owner of Disney. Therefore they are able to make quality decisions and budget is not an issue for the company. As the company began in 1923, that would be almost 100 years that they have been running. Now being the most dominant and biggest conglomerate in the whole world. 

Looking at their biggest box office successes, Disney have clearly had a mass amount. Their top 5 have been: Avengers end game at 2.7 billion dollars, Star Wars at 2 billion dollars, Avengers Infinity War at 2billion dollars, Lion king at 1.6 billion dollars and finally The Avengers at 1.5 billion dollars. through looking at these highest grossing films, it is extremely visible that Disney is one of the most successful conglomerates and will be for a long time. Their 3 highest gross films of last year was Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker, Onward and Frozen 2. their budgets at 275 million dollars, 200 million and 150 million dollars.

Looking at who Disney works with, Disney studios don't necessarily work with the same specific actors but are known to work with certain types of actors. Which tend to be A list actors that are known by the public eye. This predominantly grabs more attention towards mass audiences if it someone they know and are familiar with. And finally the advantage of a large institution is the fact that they are exposed to so much more and tend to be more established. overall they have much more access to funding, meaning profits and revenue is much higher stereotypically. 

Small studio research

 BELSTONE:

Belstone pictures was founded after Finn Cardigan left school where he originally discovered his love for film and the industry in general. Being based in Chelsea London. this is their only studio. As they are a much smaller studio when being compared to a conglomerate like Disney. Meaning the movies that Belstone produces are a lot more though out and delicately considered due to their smaller budgets and funding. As mentioned Belstone is owned by Finn Cardigan, who started it himself in 2016. they have been running for 5 years with 3 movies produced (Tucked, Tank 432 and Tracks) slowly growing as a small institution. Cardigan spent his summer before setting up Belstone, working on sets in America where he learnt the ways in which studios worked and set up.

Looking at the movies that have been produced by Belstone. we can look at how well they did. When analyzing the box office sales, Tucked made a total of 23,000 dollars. With a comparison to Disney who made over 2 billion dollars this is an extreme difference. But we can see from Belstones budget of 0.3 million. It is then visible to the difference in revenue. belstone is very different from Disney, as they use actors who are not as 'well known' compared to the A lister celebrity choice that Disney use. This could be considered helpful as it means that there are no expectations with the actor and the story could be new and real. This takes the familiarity away from audiences, and builds new
expectations. As they are a small institution as mentioned it means that there are no expectations from audiences, and means that new quality ideas are used. they are relying on content as their budget isn't what is going to get them. they have to use broader and more thought out ideas.